A bargaining breakdown and strikes: the ongoing union fight at Starbucks

Workers call proposals ‘almost laughable’ with new CEO’s pay package 10,000 times the median salary of barista


Starbucks Union members strike and picket outside of a location in Tampa, Florida, on 24 December 2024. Photograph: Dave Decker/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/14/starbucks-union-fight

Michael Sainato
Tue 14 Jan 2025 07.00 EST

Negotiations between Starbucks and its union have broken down with workers calling the company’s proposals “almost laughable” and highlighting the multi-million pay package of the coffee chain’s recently appointed CEO.

Since late 2021, over 530 Starbucks stores have won union elections, representing more than 12,000 workers at the company. But talks aimed at negotiating a first union contract have stalled and the company has called the union’s proposals “not sustainable”.

Workers said the pay of Starbucks’ new CEO, Brian Niccol, who left Chipotle in August 2024 to assume the role of CEO at Starbucks, is at the center of the breakdown in contract negotiations between Starbucks and Starbucks Workers United.

Niccol’s pay package includes up to $113m in total compensation, 10,000 times the median salary of a Starbucks barista, with a $10m sign-on bonus, $75m in stock options plus a remote office in southern California and access to the company’s private jet to travel to Starbucks headquarters in Seattle, Washington.

FULL story at link above.